This work is an animated, immersive Augmented Reality (AR) public art installation which appears both in Gstaad and St. Moritz. Viewers will access the experience through 4th Wall, a free public AR art app created by the artist. In Gstaad, viewers will encounter an immersive AR drawing in 360 degrees.
Snow –here represented by crystalline, abstract marks– will sparkle in hues of white, titanium and slate blue. Seen to be falling in reverse, the snowflakes appear to float up from the ground in an ongoing animation of a natural world gone awry. With a soundscape composed of a chorus of alp horns and wind sounds sourced from Gstaad, Siren Songs blends the region’s rich cultural past along with the uncertainty of a future imperilled by climate change. The title literalizes the idea of a siren as a warning of inevitable environmental damage.
St. Moritz harnesses the same unnatural beauty seen in the Gstaad AR animation; only in this case, the “snow particles” appear tinted with the pastel hues of local homes in a dazzling but unnerving cyclone over Lake Staz (Stazer See). This AR drawing underscores the exigencies of climate change that have compelled us to broaden our definition of what is “natural.”